Okay, there was a letter in a local free paper written by a member of the anarchist society.
I know a Little bit about this. Not a lot. Emma Goldman was a famous American anarchist.
Would anarachy work in the U.S.?
Is it feasible, or are theyre obvious loopholes?
Has it been tried anywhere?
Um…ya mean besides here?
What’s your definition of anarchy?
Here’s a link to the Encyclopedia Britannica article on anarchism.
Many anarchists reject, not only governments and laws, but also private property. In the USA, a capitalist society founded on the accumulation of wealth, that would not be a popular position to take.
I personally think that an anarchist society would fail because laws are necessary to regulate the conflicts that occur in any large social group.
The closest to anarchy would probably be Catalonia, Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The Soviets and the Fascists preempted any endogenous collapse.
picmr
Before anyone says something bad on anarchy, let me say this: anarchy does NOT equal violence. It may very well lead to violence, but a culture based on anarchy does not need violence. I am an anarcho-communist. That means that I don’t want a government, but a utopian communist society. But it will never happen because of human greed. Anarchy has been given a bad light since the Battle of Seattle. Yeah, a lot of it is violence. But a revolution now and then is a healthy thing.
Interestingly enough the non-hierarchical nature of the Native American societies (generally in North America in this case) come very close to the anarchist goal. The San and Xi peoples of Southern Africa, and other indigenous groupings are also similar.
Catalonia is probably the best example of a current western society converting to an anarchist model, it is a pity the stalinists (and fascists to, ironically enough, a lesser degree) acted against the anarchists. (ie, killing a lot of them)
Anarchism has gotten an awfully bad reputation, and not just recently, but the cynical side of me says that that is a simple result of having an ideology that threatens whoever is in power, whatever the situation.
If you can find a copy of The Proud Tower by the historian Barbara Tuchman at your library (it was a best seller in the 1960s, I found a pocketbook copy in a used book store) it gives an excellent summary of the history of European anarchy movements. Anarchy had its heyday in the mid to late 1800s but was totally unworkable. Any attempt at leadership or organization failed because it went against the fundamentals of anarchy which, IMHO, were “everyone just go ahead and do whatever you want and help yourself to whatever you need”. This had a certain appeal to people slaving 14 hours a day 7 days a week, for pennies, in hellish factories and mines and living jammed into appalling slums. When the Communists came along with a seemingly more practical revolution pretty much all the anarchists switched over.
Any modern anarchists are, I’m sorry, very ignorant youths and nut cases. In the modern world any state of anarchy is only going to create immediate massive human suffering and death.
“When the lamb is lost on the mountain it cry. Sometimes come the mother, sometimes the wolf.”
Would Somalia be an example of anarchy? I guess the vacuum of “official” government was quickly filled by the warlords, but I have trouble imaging a situation where someone did not take advantage of the opportunity to fill that void.
Anarchy is not the absence of government, wevets. It’s a form of socialism. The idea that an anarchist society is chaotic is in fact completely untrue.
And just what gives you the right to make up new definitions of words?
Hm, perhaps that I actually know what they mean, as versus people who are ignorant on the subject?
If you want definition/explanation of Anarchism may I suggest that you read up on it.
This section of the Anarchist FAQ should help out.
http://flag.blackened.net/intanark/faq/secAcon.html
Here are some articles by famous Anarchist thinkers.
http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/index.html
Here is a site devoted to Anarcho-sydicalism.
http://flag.blackened.net/huelga/
Information on the Anarchist movement during the Spanish Civil War
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2419/spaindx.html
If you want to redefine what Anarchism means, The Ryan, perhaps you could be nice enough to come up with another word for the non-hierarchical anti-authoritarian voluntary socialists?
per Initial Entry
Before Coldfire gets a chance to do it, I’d just like to jump in and say that The Non-hierarchical Anti-authoritarian Voluntary Socialists would be a great name for a band.
This is ridiculous. The Ryan is perfectly correct. The word “anarchy” comes from the greek and means “rule by no one.” similarly, monarchy means rule by one, Oligarchy rule by a few, etc. This is the way most everyone uses the word. If “anarchists” do not advocate the absence of government, they should think of a different word to describe their philosophy, if they want anyone to understand what the hell they are talking about
Now that we have finally established that anarchy involves no state, let’s get on with this rather good topic, shall we?
First, I suggest that we assume that the anarchist society is not surrounded by predatory states, so that invasion is not a threat.
Second, I suggest that we confine ourselves to the question of “could such a situation continue” rather than “could such a situation emerge”.
The key questions, it seems to me are these:
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Could significant amounts of voluntary exchange occur without state sanctions for contract default?
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What would prevent the emergence of coercive power in the private sector?
The second question comes from the idea that contract enforcement is a productive activity and that the emergence of powerful actors in a society is defacto the emergence of government.
You can guess from the above, that in my view, anarchy would not persist.
(I know that this line of thinking runs along anarcho-capitalist lines rather than anarcho-communist lines, but I think the two are essentially the same with different assumptions about the “social” nature of preferences. The two face the same problems.)
picmr
Thanks for the definitions, Smartass. I knew I hadn’t hallucinated those vocabulary lessons :).
I’m inclined to agree with picmr that the absence of a state is not a stable situation that would persist for any significant period of time.
To respond to the questions above:
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I’m not so optimistic about human nature to believe that people will resist the urge to exploit and take advantage of each other when they can do so without fear of sanction by some organized authority of society (which would effectively be a state even if it were not called that). People take advantage of and exploit each other often enough even with a government.
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Save some fantastic solution (e.g. a strong force of patrolling killbots), nothing. Perhaps an anarchist society could exist if it were small enough, but with large numbers of people, someone’s inevitably going to use force or the threat of force.
There are two assumptions being made in this thread about anarchy that I can’t swallow.
First, there’s socialism. Why would the abandonment of government suddenly result in happy, loving, sharing crap? Is the existence of government the cause of greed? I don’t think so. If government were to go away, people would still have a desire to hold property. That’s the way people are. No government made them that way.
Next, there’s this idea of defenselessness. Currently, the government does serve to protect the property and wellbeing of its people. Those people like being safe. If government were to go away, they wouldn’t suddenly lose all desire for protection. They wouldn’t suddenly decide to let any random guy come by and make off with all of their stuff. They’d put up one hell of a fight, just like they do now. The difference is that they wouldn’t have the convenience of a national military.
Or would they?
It is highly unlikely that some sense of brotherly love is suddenly going to seize the people of a nation and eliminate the need for government. It seems far more likely that large corporations, with an interest in preserving their property and employees, would begin to ignore national governments. No, really. I’m serious. Quit giggling. What happens when a company becomes so big that the wealth, power and loyalty of the people that it wields are greater than what is wielded by the government under which it was once protected?
I have no cite for the statement that I am about to make. Forgive me, please.
It is my understanding that some oil companies have, in the past, hired mercenary armies to defend their property in underdeveloped and chaotic countries. I don’t think it is at all unreasonable for a company to take steps of its own to preserve property when there is no clear national authority to do it for them. Think of all the oil wells owned or leased by US companies in developing countries that are in a near constant state of war or revolution. Are these companies going to sit idly by and just hope that the next government in charge will not nationalize their holdings? I think it’s much more likely that R. D. Shell corp. would be inclined to take direct action resulting in the success of the regime whose victory would allow for the highest profit margins.
That’s what happens in small, undeveloped countries with weak governments. This idea becomes far more interesting when we speculate that, at some point in the future, a few companies might view the existence of the US government as more of a liability than an asset. They might decide that they could defend and regulate themselves more effectively than the government. Their total cost of operations might start to look better if they employed a private security and police force rather than paying taxes for such things.
What would the government do? Go to war with a well-funded private military consisting of its own people? Could the government take any action against a company so large that its fortune determines the fate of a nation’s entire economy?
This, I believe is the most likely scenario for the fall of government. Could anarchy (if you want to call it that) under such conditions be sustained? Sure it could. Things would be very much like they are today with a few exceptions. The people would be protected, not for the sake of some lofty sense of social obligation, but for the sake of profit. People don’t work well while they’re being robbed, raped and murdered. Nor do they work well when they are bickering and fighting over civil issues. A smart company would employ a body to settle disputes.
But what would keep these companies from exploiting their workers, their people without a government to intervene on behalf of the common man? There would be competition. Free, contented employees make better, more creative workers than frightened prisoners. With the concept of nationality abandoned, people would be free to choose their employers. For the sake of profit, companies would need to make their environment more appealing than that of their competitors.
There, I’ve gotten rid of government as we know it today. Now, is that really anarchy? Can you call a company a state? Can you call a board of directors a government? With people changing their alliance with the same ease that we currently change employers, could you call anything a nation?
I dunno. These thoughts just struck me and I thought I’d toss ‘em out there. Sorry for going so far off topic.
Good post and great thoughts, tymp. 
I think that in the scenario you’ve outlined, the corporation becomes a government. After all, you’ve said it would employ force to protect its interests and apply its decisions, mediate disputes, and so on. It would take on all the functions of government, and no one ever said that all governments must be elected.
I’m not so sure about workers still having free choice, though. Some bright HR person might realize that the corporation has an advantage if the workers do not have the option of leaving the company, and that they can be forced to stay by the company’s private security.
Not to mention… what about contract disputes? Imagine if last week’s spat between ABC and Time-Warner had been duked out by private armies trying to seize or defend the cable systems? Ick!
I suppose there might be inter-corporational warfare (I just made up a word!), but I doubt it. Such things would be unlikely for the same reason that war between current “superpowers” is unlikely. The governments and the people have determined that the material and social cost of such a war would far exceed any possible gain from victory. War between major companies would be viewed in the same light. Treaties would be negotiated. The possibility of violent confrontation would be enough to compel peaceful resolution.
If the Supreme Commander of the ABC Death Squad (I believe there is such a man on their payroll) were to announce in the boardroom, “We can win this war but it will cost us roughly thirty billion dollars and four hundred thousand employees” do you think they would go for it? I suspect that they would try to arrange a settlement of some kind.
If you’d like to continue this, we should probably get our own thread.
Now, let’s see if I can post just ONCE this time.
What I don’t understand is why people think anarchy would be a good thing. I’m assuming that they are operating under the assumption that the government corrupts the people, and not the other way around.
Perhaps instead of blaming the government for all our problems and ‘oppression’, especially in The U.S., people should take some personal responsibility, IMHO